


Comfort Of Broken Clocks

by melliyna



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M, cm: family verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melliyna/pseuds/melliyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For my friend <a href="http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/"><b>bessemerprocess</b></a> because sometimes you do need angst as a means of cheering up - I hope this helps. And for <a href="http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/"><b>bluerosefairy</b></a> who held my hand last night and helped so so much with the ending. Thank you my friend (and I want to see your version of the ending still :D). Title from 'Broken' by Lifehouse.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Comfort Of Broken Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> For my friend [](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/profile)[**bessemerprocess**](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/) because sometimes you do need angst as a means of cheering up - I hope this helps. And for [](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluerosefairy**](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/) who held my hand last night and helped so so much with the ending. Thank you my friend (and I want to see your version of the ending still :D). Title from 'Broken' by Lifehouse.

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fandom: criminal minds](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fandom:+criminal+minds), [fic](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [kid-verse-au](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/kid-verse-au), [rating: pg](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/tag/rating:+pg)  
  
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_**[Fic: Criminal Minds: Comfort Of Broken Clocks]**_  
**Title:** Comfort Of Broken Clocks  
**Author:** [](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/profile)[**melliyna**](http://melliyna.livejournal.com/)  
**Fandoms:** Criminal Minds  
**Pairings:** Rossi/Hotch, past Gideon/Hotch  
**Word Count:** 1,250  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** In the Kid-Verse. Certain degree of fluff/crack may result.  
**Disclaimer:** Criminal Minds, the concept and the characters belong to their creator, CBS and their respective actors. I do this entirely for the fun of the enterprise, not for any profit.  
**Author's Note:** For my friend [](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/profile)[**bessemerprocess**](http://bessemerprocess.livejournal.com/) because sometimes you do need angst as a means of cheering up - I hope this helps. And for [](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/profile)[**bluerosefairy**](http://bluerosefairy.livejournal.com/) who held my hand last night and helped so so much with the ending. Thank you my friend (and I want to see your version of the ending still :D). Title from 'Broken' by Lifehouse.

You did what you had to do. The kids and Aaron would understand one day. You did what you had to do.

This is Jason's mantra, in place of music on the car stereo. He'd taken his work car, in which the stereo crossed the line in to 'newfangled and can't understand' for just that reason, though he figures he's got plenty of miles to learn the ropes. He stops at a gas station, buys some more supplies and unthinkingly, finds himself buying for seven rather than one and he feels his hand shaking because he's trying to run, trying to run from this life, from all associations therein (Frank's voice is in his head, still slurping that milkshake. "Don't you have a lovely family, Jason. It's a pity you don't spend much time with them") Maybe it was then, that Jason Gideon broke for good. He doesn't care, he's just going to drive. Going to drive and turn left, then right, then left again. He was planning on taking the inter-state out and then avoiding anything to do with schools, libraries, parks.

He doesn't want to think about the parks. About what Frank tried to steal, what he maybe has already stolen. But no, he's keeping them safe this way. By retreat, victory. You don't think about what it means to give up seeing graduations, weddings, a hundred other mile-stones of kids growing up. The small things from the present might just be the worst though. It's easier to focus on forgetting the future than on the way that Gideon knows that tonight, he's not going to be among them, saying good-night.

Sometimes he'd come home and just stand in the door, waiting, watching. This was his safe place. Baths, bed-time, play-time, time for school, time to go the park, go to the library. Aaron was the one who managed that, managed the routines and the schedules and made sure everyone was where they needed to be. He'd always say, 'next time, I'll take Penelope to the Doctors' or 'I'll be there, I promise' And he couldn't. Because they were his kids, but it was Aaron who raised them, who cared for them. Aaron was the steady rock in their lives and they might stampede when he came home but it doesn't change the absences. That he can't be there, because to be there too long is to make them less safe.

Gideon had always known he was broken. That's why he's running now, perhaps. Because it's safer that way. Because Frank already had the pictures, has the pictures. Has his books. Of survivors, of family.

Spencer, who he'd play records too. Spencer had an extraordinary memory, extraordinary brain. Extraordinary smile, just for Gideon. It's astounding. Serious minded Emily, with whom he'd shared books on tape on long car trips. Morgan, the family protector who'd always looked at him with a wary eye. Morgan hadn't wanted Gideon to tuck him in for a long time now. Penelope and JJ both of whom he's never been sure what to do with, most of the time. They are too much brightness - little girls in fairy dresses, dancing for cameras end up in ditches, in woods as small bodies. But then that's where all the children end up, that Jason Gideon meets. Dead or damaged beyond repair.

This is what he sees, when he looks at his family. The book of the saved and the book of the damned. So Gideon drives on, happy enough in the silence. It's safe, after all and it's a novel feeling. Gideon hasn't felt safe since Aidan Bale. Maybe since they'd brought Morgan home, but he's not supposed to be thinking about that, according to the rules he's now made because to look back is to want to turn back and he doesn't want to feel that again, ever. So Jason Gideon runs, eventually to the East Coast and he finds a niche easily enough in the anonymity of LA. There's a house, a regular job, a pay-check and he likes his neighborhood because it doesn't have many families, isn't near a park and is nowhere near a school. And he finds that he disappears easily enough in to the flood of single men who live alone, look alone and don't need to talk about their families.

He did what he had to do, he says to himself. And it's not as though they couldn't find him, if they really wanted to try.

Then work sends him to Virginia and Gideon feels the panic inside him, as he finds himself back there, walking the streets he used to walk when he was a family man, because this is not the Jason Gideon he has become, who goes to bars, plays chess and fits in easily with the truckers and their tattoos - it's like being back in the military, but without the discipline or the duty. Being here is a sting of old memories and ghosts in every street, every park, every glimpse of children and their fathers. Because he's tried to escape it, but they are still his. He is still their father, he says to himself, that's why he ran. It was for them.

He's not going to talk to them, but he does go to see them at the end of the day, when school lets out. And he still knows when, so he goes. Stands there, parks a little distance away and watches.JJ is still tiny, her soccer ball under one arm but her hair has been cut differently. Emily, Emily has grown, he thinks. She still walks a little like Aaron does, books tucked under one arm with one eye on JJ . And Morgan. Morgan is so much taller, but then he's turned thirteen in the time that Gideon has been gone, though he's still watching over his siblings. Jason Gideon can spot a little more vigilance than he'd known, back then. He'd tried not to, put he's mapped their progress, their growth in his head all this time but the photographs he has don't match up anymore.

When he sees Spencer and Penelope, something nearly breaks and he nearly just runs over. Spencer is walking. Happy, settled and chattering little toddler, not the baby he'd left. Penelope, still wearing her bright red shoes and has a wand but it's new one proudly sticking out of her back-pack not the one he'd bought her. She's holding Aaron's hand and he's trying not to look at Aaron because that's too hard, too much to face. To look at Aaron is to look at the memory of what Frank had planned to do him. So he looks at his two youngest, all grown up as they walk towards the others and that's when he sees David Rossi, who is beaming.

"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy"

It's a chorus and it burns him, to see it. The casual way Rossi can hold them, can cuddle them when they run to him. The older two are more sedate, but there's no doubting the way they look up at him.

Jason Gideon knows then, that he might always be their father and they will always be his kids, but David Rossi is Dad, more than he can ever be. Just one more thing that Frank took away.

You did what you had to do, he says as he drives away.


End file.
